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ALMATY, March 10 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan does not plan to introduce currency controls to stem capital flight after the one-off devaluation of its currency tenge, the central bank's deputy chairman said on Tuesday.
"We do not plan to introduce it (a special currency regime)," Daniyar Akishev told a news conference. Kazakhstan's parliament approved the first reading of a law last week streamlining the procedures for introducing currency controls.
Akishev said that once approved the new law will give President Nursultan Nazarbayev the right to impose mandatory forex sales by exporters and introduce a ban on forex transfers and holdings abroad by both firms and individuals.
He said the current law already had such provisions, but the amendments would make procedures clearer.
"We are defining more clearly what controls can be introduced in case the country's economic security is threatened," Akishev said.
Imposing such controls would exclude Kazakhstan from the league of emerging economies with a liberal currency regime, making it less attractive for investors. But the central bank said such a measure would be taken only in an emergency. Kazakhstan devalued the tenge by 18 percent against the dollar last month, citing lower oil prices and similar devaluations in neighbouring countries including Russia.
The central bank has said it will keep the exchange rate between 145 and 155 tenge per dollar for at least a year, but some analysts say it could come under more pressure if oil prices stay depressed for a long time.
Central bank Chairman Grigory Marchenko told the same news conference the tenge had been strengthening last week without the regulator's interventions.
A number of emerging economies with liberal currency regimes were forced to devalue their currencies in recent months amid strong capital flight, prompting some politicians and economists to call for a return of capital controls.
In the late 1990s, Kazakhstan used some currency controls such as mandatory forex sales after it devalued the tenge following a similar move by Russia.
Central Asia's largest economy is suffering from the global liquidity squeeze and low prices for oil, its key export, just as it did in 1998-1999. The government sees growth this year at 2 percent, but some economists say it could be negative. (Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov, editing by Alfred Kueppers and Stephen Nisbet